8-Day Sahara of the North Tour: Xi'an, Yinchuan & Zhongwei

Morning — Arrival and Hotel Check-in
Land at Xi'an Xianyang International Airport, where your guide and driver are waiting. A private vehicle takes you into the city and to your hotel for check-in and rest.

Afternoon — Bell Tower Square
When you are ready, stroll around Bell Tower Square and feel the geometry of Chang'an: the Ming bell tower stands at the crossing of the city's four great axes, exactly where the Tang capital placed its own administrative heart.

Evening — Flavours of the Northwest
Head to the Muslim Quarter for dinner. Roujiamo, lamb pao mo and cold liangpi noodles come in quick succession, and the rich, savoury northwestern palate of Shaanxi announces itself in the first mouthful.

Meals
Breakfast, Dinner included.

Morning — The Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum
Drive east to Lintong and stand at the edge of Pit 1, where more than six thousand life-sized soldiers face east in battle formation. Each face is different; the bronze weapons were still sharp when they came out of the ground. Your guide walks you through Pits 1, 2 and 3 and the Bronze Chariot hall, and explains how a workforce of artisans produced an army on an industrial scale in the third century BC.

Afternoon — Huaqing Palace
Continue to Huaqing Palace at the foot of Mount Li, where Emperor Xuanzong built thermal baths and pavilions for his consort Yang Guifei. The same courtyards later became the setting for the 1936 Xi'an Incident, so the site carries both the most famous love story and one of the decisive political moments of modern China.

Evening — The Grand Tang Mall
After dark, walk the Grand Tang Mall, a 2.1-kilometre pedestrian avenue of Tang-style architecture, light installations and street performance that recreates the night market of Chang'an at the height of the dynasty.

Meals
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included.

Morning — The Xi'an Museum
The Xi'an Museum and its Small Wild Goose Pagoda courtyard frame the capital's whole 3,100-year arc in one visit — the right send-off before turning north off the historic axis.

Afternoon — High-Speed Rail to Yinchuan
Board the train north. Watch the Guanzhong plain dry into the loess plateau, then level out onto the irrigated greens of the Ningxia plain — the Jiangnan of the North, an island of water in the arid north-west.

Evening — The Drum Tower Night Market
Check in, then eat at the Drum Tower Night Market: hand-caught lamb, skewers, eight-treed tea and the noodles Ningxia calls its own.

Meals
Breakfast, Dinner included.

Morning — The Western Xia Imperial Tombs
Explore the Western Xia Imperial Tombs, sometimes called the pyramids of the east: nine imperial mausoleums and more than two hundred satellite tombs at the foot of the Helan mountains, the largest and best-preserved imperial cemetery of the Western Xia.

Afternoon — Helan Mountain Rock Art
Visit the Helan Mountain petroglyphs. Thousands of images cut into the cliffs by ancient nomads record ritual, hunting and daily life; scholars call it history written on stone.

Evening — At Leisure
Free evening in Yinchuan.

Meals
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included.

Morning — Sand Lake
Head to the Sand Lake ecological tourism zone, where desert and lake meet: reeds and migratory birds above water, dunes rolling like waves just beyond. It is the 'Jiangnan of the north' in a single view.

Afternoon — Drive to Zhongwei
Drive to Zhongwei, about two hours, through the pastoral scenery of the Ningxia plain.

Evening — Zhongwei
Check in and rest, ready for tomorrow's desert.

Meals
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included.

Morning — Shapotou
Visit Shapotou, where the Yellow River runs into the sand. Try sand sliding, take a camel across the dunes, or ride a traditional sheepskin raft on the river.

Afternoon — Into the Tengger Desert
Board desert 4x4 vehicles and go deep into the Tengger desert, heart-stopping over the dune waves, then reach the camp and set up for the night.

Evening — Dinner and Stargazing
Outdoor dinner at the camp, then look up. With almost no light pollution, the Milky Way resolves in a way that city dwellers rarely see; this is among the best stargazing in the northern hemisphere.

Meals
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included.

Morning — Desert Camp to Yinchuan
Break camp and drive back across the Ningxia plain, then board the high-speed train south to Xi'an.

Afternoon — The Ancient City Wall
Back in Xi'an, walk a stretch of the Ming city wall as the light goes. Built in 1370 and running 13.7 kilometres around the old city, it is the most complete ancient city wall in China; from the top you look down on grey-tiled courtyard houses on one side and the towers of the new city on the other.

Evening — Farewell Dinner
A farewell dinner of Shaanxi specialities, reviewing eight days of desert, tombs and loess.

Meals
Breakfast, Dinner included.

Morning — Huajue Lane and the Great Mosque
Visit the Great Mosque on Huajue Lane, one of the largest and best preserved mosques in China. Founded in the Tang dynasty, it sets Arabic script and Chinese timber architecture side by side in the same courtyards, a record of more than a thousand years of Islamic life in Chang'an.

Afternoon — Shopping
Free time for last-minute shopping: cured beef, sweet fermented rice wine, date cake, hand-cut paper-cuts and calligraphy. Your guide can point you to shops the city itself buys from.

Evening — Departure
Your private transfer takes you to Xi'an Xianyang International Airport for your onward flight.

Meals
Breakfast included.